Galveston (62 page)

“That's where I've heard it,” said Mr. Pickett, brightening. “A Byron heads up a school that used to be the Pedagoguery. Course, folks still insist on callin' it the Pedagoguery, although they changed its name some years back and switched from an all girls' school to coeds. But he doesn't get his mail out of here. Probably gets it from up yonder in Greenwood.

“I don't know the fella's first name—do you, Zach? No? It may not be the one you're looking for, but you look kinda done in. Been lookin' for a long time?”

“All my life, it seems. I certainly would be willing to give it a try.”

“It's almost certain he lives there at the school. If you could get up there … oh, but I just thought of somethin'. The kids are gone now, for the holidays. The place might be deserted.”

“Oh, that's all I need.”

“Now, don't fret. You sit down over there by the fire and I'll bring you a cup of coffee—Madge just made it, and she makes the best coffee in town—”

“No, thanks. I haven't time. But do you know if there's anyone who could take me up to the school?”

“Let's see. They've got buses come back and forth early Monday morning to pick up the day students, but course they're not running now.”

“Maybe a cab could take me, although I'm short of money at this point. I've traveled almost five hundred miles to find him. Do you know how much the fare would be?”

“A good piece, I'd say, for it's a distance. Tell you what, let me see if I can get my wife, Madge, to take over the store for a couple of hours. I can take you myself. She's back there doin' her Christmas baking, but maybe I could persuade her to stay out here awhile and keep an eye on things.”

“You're the kindest man I've ever met. I'd be eternally grateful to you both.”

“I'll be back directly.”

He disappeared behind the curtain again, and was gone a few minutes. I could hear two voices speaking back and forth to each other, and had a strong feeling Madge didn't like the idea of coming to the front of the store. Hearing them gave me an odd feeling of detachment. Here I was, everything staked on that school up there, the most important thing in the world to me, getting there. And there was poor Madge, up to her elbows in flour and spices and candied fruit, wondering how in the world she would finish her Christmas baking when her husband insisted on taking off with some girl and leaving her to mind the store.

I told myself it did not matter what Madge Pickett was thinking, or what her dilemma was, any more than it ever mattered about anyone else when I wanted something for myself. But as I stood there, looking around the store, smelling the fragrance of old leather and tobacco, of fresh coffee and spices, I lost that detached feeling, and knew I felt as sorry for Madge Pickett as I did for myself.

“It's very important I get to the school today,” I told her as she came out. She was red-haired with brown eyes and an expression of suspicion on her face. “When we return, I'll help you any way I can, I promise.”

“Humph. It's no bother, dearie. Any two people crazy enough to go out under a snow sky and drive that far, more power to them.” Someone came into the store then, and she went across to help him as we left through the front door.

Henry Pickett drove an old Dodge Roadster that bumped and rattled every foot of the way between Grady and the school. He wasn't very tall, and sat on a cushion on the front seat in order to get a full view of the road ahead. He wore an old pair of brown leather gloves and held the wheel with arms wide apart, as one would carry a big washtub. The car was heated, much to my relief, so I didn't mind the rattling much. Besides, Mr. Pickett proved to be a good conversationalist and knew much about Grady.

“Now, that heater down on your side gets pretty hot sometimes, so you let me know if you get uncomfortable and we'll cut if off. Madge insisted we buy a heater last year, but I wish they'd find a better place to put those things than under the dash …

“You from these parts originally?”

“No, I've never been here before. I think James Byron might have known my real mother … I'm adopted, you see.”

“Oh, and searchin' out your past, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sometimes it works out for the best, findin' a person's past, and sometimes not. Grady's a good little place to live. Not much going on, hardly any crime and very little excitement. Me and Madge raised our two boys here, but they've both married now and moved away.”

“Have you lived here always?”

“Twenty-five years.”

“Then you might have been here when James Byron was. Did you know any Byrons?”

“Lemme see … there used to be a family name of Byron, owned a second-hand furniture store downtown. I didn't know them, only that they owned the store. However, I don't know as the Byron up at the school is related to them. Likely not; people come and go a lot here, and Byron's a pretty common name, isn't it?”

“I guess so, though you couldn't tell it by the telephone directories I've looked at.”

“Well, it's about forty-five minutes to the school from here, if I recall. We'll be there before noon if it don't start to snow. I sure hope we get back before it starts.”

“You have lots of snow up here, then?”

“A good bit, and it's treacherous when it comes, too, three or four feet usually; makes it impossible to get around much.”

I said nothing. I would have hated to get Mr. Pickett caught in the snow, but I couldn't think of turning back when I'd come this far. I looked out the window and hoped it wouldn't start until tomorrow.

“What made you think you would find this feller here?”

“Only the old address.”

“Oh, and you've already been down to Blackburn Place.”

“Yes.”

“To look at it now, you'd never think what a pretty sight it used to be around there.”

“So I've heard.”

“Seems nothin' lasts forever. The good things go along with the bad, I reckon.”

“Yes.”

The warmth of the little car made me drowsy, and I must have fallen asleep before we were twenty minutes down the road. The next thing I knew we were pulling into a circular drive, and Henry Pickett was tapping my shoulder.

“Oh, I didn't mean to sleep. Are we here?”

“Yes'm. Don't worry, folks who aren't used to this kind of weather always get drowsy in it.”

My legs now felt baked from the heat. As Henry Pickett, the soul of chivalry, got out of the car and came round to my side, I looked upon the school. It was structured much like the Hotel Galvez, with a cupola in the center from which a bare flagpole thrust up starkly, and a wing jutting out each side of the main section. Several more outbuildings were situated here and there. All of them, including the main building, looked deserted, with shades pulled down over the windows. I got out and stretched my legs.

The buildings were bathed in the silence of half-light. A shuffling sound, elusive as that of a deer crossing the snow, caused me to look quickly around. Yet there was nothing. No snow still, only the uncanny feeling of something about to happen.

“D'you think anybody's here?”

“Only one way to find out.”

We mounted the steps of the main building and Henry Pickett tried the door. My heart quickened a little. It seemed so easy now, was it all to prove a big letdown, like everything else?

“Well, someone's here anyway,” he said as the door yielded. “Leastwise you could pick up some information.”

As we entered the foyer I felt as though I'd been transported back in time to my days at Central High. The same smell of old, well-polished wood; disinfectant from a recent floor cleaning; the musty odor of long-used textbooks. Statues were placed on pedestals here and there; Thomas Jefferson held a prominent place between the two double doorways that most certainly led to the school auditorium. Trophy cases full of the slightly tarnished fruits of labor on the sports fields lined the walls.

All of these things at Central High were gone now, for Central had burned last year. All at once I felt an aching hope the same thing should never happen here, only why should I care? And then I knew. This was James Byron's place. He was here. I knew it even as Henry Pickett announced it from the directory posted on the wall.

“James R. Byron, Administrator,” he said excitedly. “Looks good, looks good. Room 104.”

I think he enjoyed the taste of imminent victory himself, but stopped and said almost apologetically, “Uh—I'll wait out here. This bein' the first floor, 104 ought to be around there, down the hall or somethin'. You go on.”

“I'll be back in a moment to let you know,” I told him, and my voice was calm, almost confident.

Room 104 was halfway down the left wing, on the left side. The transom above the tall door was open; there was light inside. I knocked only once, softly on the milky glass, and heard a shuffle: someone flipping the pages of a book.

The man who opened the door was taller than I—his head reached the level of the painted numbers on the glass. He wore round, horn-rimmed spectacles which might have fooled anyone he was older than he is. He was neatly turned out in navy suit, his dark hair parted down the center and closely trimmed.

“Excuse me, would you be Mr. James Byron?”

“Why, yes, miss, may I help you in some way?”

Suddenly I could think of no way to empty out all the information stored up for so long. I was like a bulging cornucopia, awaiting Thanksgiving Day for someone to empty me out. Dumbfounded, I held out the carpetbag.

He looked at it in puzzlement. “Yes, are you delivering this for one of the students?”

“No, no. I'm Willa Frazier. I think you knew my mother. This was her bag.”

He then narrowed his eyes behind the spectacles and looked again, closely, at the bag, as though trying to recall something.

“Look, I have some other things in my purse here—two programs, a picture, and a slip of paper with your name and two addresses on it,” I said, and dug a clammy hand down into my bag.

When I pulled out the evidence, James Byron went white, then looked across at me. “Thank God, she made it after all. Is she here with you?” He glanced quickly beyond me.

“No, I've never seen her.”

“Come in, come in.”

I'd followed him in and waited as he fastidiously dusted an already clean chair seat across from his desk. Then he said, “And how did you get all the way up here?” and I thought at last of Henry Pickett.

“Oh, just a minute,” I said, and heaped the bag down on the floor. I ran back down to where Mr. Pickett stood inside the entrance door, patiently waiting with hands clasped behind him. He'd raised the big shade and was looking out through the glass at the sky, which seemed more than ever pregnant with snow.

“I've found him, and I'll be all right. Let me pay you something for what you've done—”

“No, sir. Glad to be able to help you out, Miss Frazier. Think you've found the secret to your past, do you?”

“At least a start. He's down the hall … want to meet him?”

“No, no. I'd best be on my way.”

“Yes, any minute now, the snow—”

“But how will you get back?”

“I don't know right now, and it doesn't matter. I—I don't know quite how to thank you for what you've done. If it hadn't been for you I would have never found him.”

“It is I, much obliged to you, for getting me out of the store for a spell. Good luck to you, miss. I hope all you find will make you happy.”

I did something then that I can scarcely ever remember doing to anyone in my life. I reached up and hugged Henry Pickett. He was just a bit embarrassed at this spontaneous show of affection, and after clearing his throat and blushing slightly, smiled and opened the door. I watched him till he'd entered his car and rattled around the circular drive away from the school, and had a fleeting thought again of Madge Pickett and her Christmas baking.

When I returned, James had brought two cups of hot coffee from somewhere, and cleared a space from the mounds of paper and books on his desk, and set the carpetbag down to one side. The four paper items he had lined up in front of him, like cards in a game of solitaire, and was studying them carefully.

“There are other things … in the bag.”

“Of course. Shall I open it? Bad shape, huh? Bottom's half rotted from water damage.”

“Yes, I've been wondering where it sat, to get that way.”

“Good question. She was generally careful not to get the bag wet.”

He pulled out the cambric gown, and looked suddenly embarrassed. “Of course I never saw this,” he said, and I couldn't suppress a smile. “The shoes,” he said then, almost caressingly, and pulled them out one by one, nudging his hands down inside them. “She was always going to sew on new ribbons, but never got around to it that summer.”

“Was she a professional dancer?” I asked, thinking of Margueretta Sterling.

“No, but I understand she was quite talented in any case. By the date of this opera program, I expect she may have saved it from her first taste of professional ballet. She might have eventually wound up on stage herself, except …” He stopped talking and looked up at me. “These things were all you found in the bag?”

“Yes. Did you expect something more?”

“Well, she did keep a diary, and with all these other mementos here it seems rather strange …” He dug down and felt all around inside again.

“How convenient that would have been!”

“Yes, well, so here you are, Willa. Is that what your friends call you?”

“Yes.”

“It suits you. You are a little like them both, I think. They were on the tall side; she was fair and he dark, handsome. She was beautiful, you know.”

“When did you last see her?”